


Depressed!Cassian

by PropShopHannah



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Cassian's wings, Depressed!Cassian, F/M, Lord Devlon - Freeform, Nessian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 01:55:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9856751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PropShopHannah/pseuds/PropShopHannah
Summary: Ever since shredding his wings, Cassian hasn't left his room. It's been weeks, and Nesta's had enough of his moping. She can't stand feeling as if she's just sitting around watching him slowly fade away. And she can't stand the idea that the Cassian she loves never made it out of Hybern. So she comes up with a plan. It's not her best, but she's out of time and desperate. The problem with helping people, is that sometimes you inadvertently make yourself vulnerable.





	1. Chapter 1

Nesta Archeron took a deep breath and marched across the hall. She banged her knuckles on Cassian’s door twice–grimacing at how eager she hadn’t meant to sound.

“Who is it?” he called. She didn’t bother answering. Just pushed open the door and waltzed in, making sure the easy fabric of her dress fluttered just so around her hips–

She frowned.

Cassian was lying in bed with his back to her. Fine, it was fine. 

His wings were in full view–wrapped in fresh white bandages, tightly bound to his back. His light, ash-brown skin paler from the weeks he’d spent indoors. She thought he might be staring out the tall windows at the sunset over Velaris. But maybe he’d been sleeping.

He’d done a lot of sleeping lately.

“Who do you think it is,” Nesta said arrogantly. He didn’t move. She didn’t care.

Nesta prowled across the room and rounded the bed, making sure each step echoed loudly off the stone floor. She didn’t stop until she was directly in front of him, blocking the view, which he had indeed been staring at given the annoyed look he gave her. She thrust her wrist into his face, perhaps a _ bit _ closer than she’d intended.

He glanced between her wrist and face. She rolled her eyes. 

“Well, are you going to help me or not?” She dangled a thin, gold bracelet out for him to take.

A corner of his sensuous mouth curled. “Are you asking for my help, Nesta?” Cassian said. Cauldron–his voice was like gravel. She didn’t dare glance at the untouched water on the night table, nor at the uneaten lunch tray next to it. She wasn’t his mother, and she wasn’t going to baby him. He’d probably hate that anyway.

So she merely said, “Clearly.”

He took the bracelet from her hand and fiddled for the clasps. 

When she’d come up with this stupid plan, she’d made sure to grab the smallest bracelet. His fingers were large and calloused–it’d take him a few tries to get the clasp set. Good, because it’d take her a few tries to find another excuse to start a conversation.

“You look fancy tonight,” he said. Maybe she wouldn’t have to start the conversation.

She schooled her features into smug boredom. “I have a date, so I’m trying on outfits.” She shrugged.

“Oh?” His fingers brushed her wrist.

“Is that so hard to believe?” she said, perhaps a bit too forcefully. 

He smirked at her, and it was an effort not to let him see too much. Not to let him see why she was really in his room.

“No,” he said. “Not at all. Especially if he’s never actually met you.” He hooked the clasp on the third try. “So tell me, who is the poor, unfortunate bastard?”

She’d prepared for this question. She had an answer that was partly true but mostly fiction ready to enrage him… 

But the light in his eyes was gone. Or maybe it had never been there, not since Hybern anyway.

So she held out her wrist, making of show of examining the way the bracelet looked on her pale arm and against the dress.

“No,” she said. “This won’t do.” She shoved her wrist in Cassian’s face–too close–again. “Take it off.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

She shook her wrist, tossing the delicate bracelet about, and said, “It doesn’t match. Take it off.”

Cassian grabbed her wrist, pulling her forward so that she yielded a step. Or maybe she’d wanted to yield that step. He began trying for the clasp. She ignored the scent of him–like woodsmoke and pine and wind.

“You know, Nesta,” Cassian said. But the tone was all wrong. It was not the booming, cunning, bedroom voice of the too proud commander—it was the voice of a male who hadn’t left his room in weeks. A male who couldn’t find the strength to even  _ try  _ to pretend like that wasn’t true. “You’d have suitors in a line out the door if you’d learn some manners.”

With just the tip of her finger she pushed his chin up and looked him hard in the eyes. His face was uninterested, tired. “I’m not looking to be wooed by some dimwit in a fancy outfit,” she said.

“Oh? What are you looking for, Nesta?” His shoulders curved down and his focus went back to the bracelet.

Nesta gripped his chin hard, forcing his eyes back to her, and said smoothly, “Someone to fuck.”

He snapped the clasp, dropping the bracelet—and there it was. The ember, the light that used to smolder in those beautiful hazel eyes. The thing she’d come into this room searching for. He blinked then stared hard at the too thin bracelet still on her wrist. Nesta thought his hands burned where they touched her skin. 

His thumb shook as if he wanted to brush it over the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist.

“On second thought,” she said, pulling her arm from him. “I think I’ll leave it on.” She turned away and prowled from the room.

She thought that maybe his eyes had followed her out, but she didn’t dare turn to look.


	2. Chapter 2

The following evening, Nesta banged once on Cassian’s door before letting herself in.

“Nesta?” Cassian said, raising an eyebrow. He was still lying in bed. But he looked as though he’d at least bathed, as if he’d finally eaten something, too. He was sprawled atop the bed sheets on his stomach, wearing nothing but a pair of loose fitting trousers.

Nesta didn’t dare look at the bandages on his wings. Instead she allowed him to see her roll her eyes over his generous, muscular backside. Then she prowled to him, as if she’d seen nothing of interest.

“I require assistance, and you’re the only one in the House of Wind readily available,” she said. Nesta sat on the end of his bed, facing away from him and swept the hair off the back of her neck. “My necklace has become tangled in my hair.”

“And what do you want me to do about it?”

She glared at him over his shoulder—and found him staring at the exposed skin of her shoulderblades. Indeed, the thin straps and silky material of this particular blush-colored dress had been the right choice. And for all Cassian’s training in weapons, Nesta was sure no one had ever taught him about how one might yield clothing and skin to their advantage. 

His loss. Her gain.

“What do you think I want you to do?” she said. “I want you to untangle it.”

Cassian pulled himself into a sitting position. “Why don’t you just cut it free?”

She merely said, “If you cut my hair, I’ll cut yours.” Then she turned away from him and motioned to where the necklace was tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck. 

She felt the heat of him as he scooted closer, the bed dipping with his weight. The warmth of him met her skin as he leaned forward to see just where the necklace has become entangled… 

And as his breath caressed her skin, she cursed herself for tangling the necklace so closely to her head. She should have tied the knots farther away. Much. Farther. Away.

“Nesta,” Cassian breathed into her skin.

_ Shit—shit shit shit shit shit _

The hairs on her back and arms went rigid, standing on end, at the gentle touch of his breath. And at the same time as she wondered just how close his mouth might be to her skin, she cursed herself for not wearing anything to support her breasts. If she turned around, or if he looked over her shoulder— _ that _ kind of evidence she’d not be able to hide.

“How did your date go?” he asked. And the sadness in his voice sobered her.

“I didn’t go on a date.”

“Did you get stood up?” A forced, playful tone, but it was undercut with a hint of hope…

Nesta jerked her head back and glared at him. “Ouch,” she said when her hair pulled. 

“Hold still.” 

She faced away from him again and said, “I did not get stood up. I just haven’t gone on the date yet.”

“But yest—”

“You _assumed_ I had a date yesterday evening. You assumed incorrectly.” His fingers gently pulled some hair free from where she’d purposefully tangled it in the necklace. And she thought about how easy it would be to let the dip in the bed from his weight pull her back into him. How easily it would be to pretend it had been an accident… 

But she knew what his reaction would be. Knew that even if he managed to make a joke, his heart would not be in it. 

_ And that, _ she thought,  _ would hurt more than anything. _

She sat up straighter. Stuffing down whatever it was she was trying not to feel. She’d had an idea. And it had been a stupid one. So stupid to think this was a good idea, that this would work. 

What was she even doing here? What _was_ she doing here?

“Hurry up,” she barked.

“Again with those lost manners,” Cassian said. Nesta snarled. “Who is your date with by the way?”

And because of how foolish she felt—how useless and idiotic and utterly embarrassed—she did not think twice about the razor sharp lie before it cut from her tongue like an adder strike.

“Lord Devlon.”

The scent in the room changed. As if that yawning pit of despair in him had been cleaved open by the words and had sunk it’s fangs into him. Swallowed him. 

And Nesta did not know what to do. Told herself she did not know what to do. That she was a stupid girl who’d made a promise to never make herself vulnerable ever again and then she had and Cassian… Cassian had promised… had shredded his wings and still— _ still  _ he had tried to get her, to fight for her. 

But she was worthless and weak and rotten inside. And she’d been foolish to think that she could get him out of this bed. Get him to want to live again—to be Cassian again. To be with his friends, his family, with  _ her _ —

Nesta stood up, not caring how painfully her hair pulled when the motion yanked it, and the necklace, from his hands. She deserved that pain. It was the least she deserved after what she’d said.

She did not turn around as she stalked from the room. 

Useless and pathetic and utterly worthless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm PropShopHannah on tumblr.


	3. Chapter 3

Three days later, Nesta knocked on Cassian’s door. She had no idea what she was doing there. What she was going to say.

She waited for him to give her permission to enter. She wore a velvet dress in deepest blue. The sleeves were long and tight, the neckline modest.

“Who is it?” Cassian said from within.

“Nesta,” she replied in a voice that was smaller than she’d intended. 

“Come in.” 

She took a deep breath and opened the door. 

Cassian sat on the end of the bed, back to her. He wore only a pair of black trousers. He looked over at her, elbows braced on his knees. He’d been staring out the window at Velaris as as the sun set. The golden light gilded his beautiful face, and Nesta had to look away. 

So she’d looked down. And that had been the wrong thing to do because the muscles of his chest were visible above and below the bandages that kept his wings bound tightly in place.

Those muscles were covered in swirling black tattoos that accented the deep-copper undertone that had all but gone missing from his skin these past weeks. But there, somewhere in the natural ash-brown coloring that gave him away as Illyrian, Nesta thought she saw some of that copper. Some of that life.

“Nesta?” Cassian said playfully.

And she realized that she’d been staring. That she’d stopped walking like a lust struck imbecile to stare at him. She picked her jaw off the floor and met the slumbering light in his eyes.

She prowled to him. And when she was directly in front of him, she turned her back and lifted her hair.

“My dress,” she said haughtily. “I can’t get all the buttons myself.” A bold move—even for her.

“Did you even try?” She could hear the amused arrogance in his voice. 

And even though she hadn’t bothered to try at all, her anger spiked. “Are you going to help me, or am I to keep Lord  waiting?”

“Devlon,” Cassian said, taking the first of those buttons in his fingers and looping it shut right above the curve of her backside. “Is a prick.” He looped the next few buttons. “Who treats females poorly”—his hands were half way up her back now—“and will never do more than fall into bed with you”—he was at her shoulder blades—“because he believes in only breeding pureblood Illyrians.” 

Nesta caught herself leaning into him as his hot breath caressed the back of her neck. She whirled around and—

He was standing. Cassian was  _ standing _ behind her. 

She stared at him. Stared  _ up _ at him. Then down at his feet. At the pants he wore—at the muscles, too.

She took a step back and said, “You forget that I only want someone to fuck.”

“Oh?” Cassian said, folding his arms across his wide chest. “And why is that?” 

Nesta had no answer. She had no answer because her date with Devlon was a complete lie and because she hadn’t expected him to care.

Cassian gave her a swaggering smile. “Funny,”—he took a step toward her—“how you only want someone to fuck you, Nesta.” The way he’d said her name—Cauldron have mercy. “Because it sounds as if you’re holding out for—”

But he didn’t finish the sentence. He’d taken another step and lost his balance. Not used to walking without his wings. Not used to having to balance with just his legs and arms.

Nesta caught him just as he caught himself as he staggered to the side. And just like that any light that had returned to his eyes vanished.

Nesta immediately let go of him, fully aware of his embarrassment. He did not look up at her as he sat back down and placed his head in his hands.

It was too quiet. The room was too quiet. And Cassian—

She lifted a hand to place it on his shoulder but stopped.

“You should go,” he said, not bothering to look at her. “You’ll be late.”

And she left.

Just like that, she left, closing the door behind her and walking across the wide hall and straight into her bedroom. She closed the door.

What was she supposed to do? Wh at  _ was _ she supposed to do?

He was embarrassed and wounded—his pride hurt. There was nothing she could do. Nothing she could do would take that shame away from him…  _ right? _

Nesta looked down at the beautiful blue dress that brought out her eyes. The beautiful blue dress that  _ he _ thought she was wearing for someone else. The dress she’d picked for him because she’d always thought blue complimented the copper and brown of his skin, the red of his siphons—

_ What the hell was she doing? _

Nesta Archeron did not sit on her ass and hide in her room from haughty males, with hulking muscels, too much heart, and who only wanted to sit in their bedrooms to brood and sulk because they couldn’t use their wings. _Fuck. That._

If Cassian wanted to act like a child, then fine. She’d treat him like a child. But what she would not do was sit around like her father, like Tamlin, like she’d done those first few years of poverty before Feyre had been taken. When she’d been content to watch them starve just to punish her useless, pathetic fool-of-a-father. 

Nesta was not that girl anymore. Something had changed in her when Feyre had been taken. The moment their hovel door had shut and their father had sat back down—had done nothing—she’d realized that her anger had blinded her to the fact that she had turned into him. The thing, the person, she hated most in the world.

So no, Nesta Archeron would not sit on her ass and do nothing while someone she loved suffered. Not again—never again. She would get Cassian out of that room and she’d do it her way.

Nesta Archeron stood up straight as a pillar of steel and marched across the hall like a battering ram. She did not bother to knock as she forced open the door—with a loud bang—and prowled into Cassian’s room.

_ Poor Illyrian baby. _ If he wanted to sulk, then he’d do it at the damn dinner table on the balcony where she’d planned to take him all along.

“Get. Up.” She could feel that burning rage and power rolling off her skin.

Cassian was lying in bed, his back to her. “Go away, Nesta.”

“No,” she snarled.

She yanked the covers off the bed.

Nothing. He didn’t move. Fine. She knew just where to apply the right pressure.

Fire crackled at her fingers and she incinerated the bed sheets until they were nothing more than a smoldering pile of ash and soot on the glossy floor.

Cassian looked over at her then. He hated when things were dirty. “You’re cleaning that up.”

With a wave of her hand, Nesta sent a hot breeze through the ashes, scattering them all across the floor. She raised an eyebrow as if to say: “Make me.”   
She smiled—cruel and wicked and utterly merciless. “Get up,” she demanded. “You’re taking me to dinner.”

“Maybe you haven't noticed,” Cassian said, “but I'm not exactly steady on my feet, or capable of flight. Ask Az—”

“Pathetic.”

He sat up at that. Straight as an arrow and said, “Excuse me?”

She prowled as close to the bed as she dared and braced her hands on her hips. “I said. You’re.  _ Pa-the-tic _ .” She enunciated every last syllable. And because Cassian looked as if he were truly going to slaughter her, she added, “Did you hurt your wings or your ears? I told you that you were taking me to dinner. Now get up.”

And Cassian did more than just get up. He practically launched himself off the bed to stand in her face. He glared at her. She glared at him.

“You’re walking just fine to me,” she said in a voice so innocent it was deadly. “You should consider putting a shirt on though. The balcony gets rather chilly in the evening.”

The burning light in his hazel eyes shuttered then exploded into hot, burning rage as he understood all she’d implied.

Cassian tapped each siphon—covering his arms, chest, and legs in armor so tight it was like a second skin—he growled, “Lord Devlon is coming here?”

Nesta let him simmer for a moment more. Then she turned on a heel and practically danced to the door. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

And that indeed was all it took to get Cassian out of his room. He prowled after her, hot on her heels all the way through the residential part of the House on Wind and into the private dining halls.

Nesta strolled through a pair of beautiful glass doors and out onto an empty balcony. In the center, a table had been set for two. Faelight bobbed around the delicate bouquet in the center.

Nesta glided over to a chair—which Cassian beat her to. He pulled it out for her, scanning their surroundings with trained efficiency for any sign of Lord Devlon.

“Thank you,” she said as she sat. She noticed then that his armor had not covered his wings, only the skin beneath. Bandages were still wrapped around each wing, holding them together and keeping them immobile. But the thick gauze that had bound his wings to his torso had been cut thought. She didn’t let the thought bother her, didn’t let her eyes pause for too long on them. She’d tell one of the healers later.

“Where is he?” Cassian growled.

Nesta flourished a hand and said, “How am I supposed to know?”

Cassian marched around the table and sat in the only other seat, like a king taking his throne. Wings or not, Cassian sat like he owned every inch of that balcony, as if he were daring Devlon to take his seat.

“Wine?” Nesta said. She didn’t wait for him to answer before she filled the only other glass on the table. Cassian took it, drinking deeply. Nesta was pretty sure the way he was gripping the glass was not from rage or lack of manners, but because he wanted to leave his hand prints and smudges over every available inch of it. She fought a smile.

“Bread? Chicken?” Again, she didn’t bother to hear his reply before she snapped her fingers and dinner appeared before them.

As expected, Cassian wasted no time taking several bites of everything, making sure to use every available utensil and napkin that should be for Devlon. Like a dog marking his territory.

Nesta ate as well. Casually sipping her wine as she went.

When the sun had just dipped below the horizon, Cassian stopped shoveling food and glassware into his mouth and looked up at her.

“You never had a date with Devlon did you?” he said.

And maybe it was because she was satisfied with herself, or maybe it was because she was truly happy, Nesta let _ some _ of her smile free.

 

~

 

Cassian blinked. And blinked again, taking in everything about the way Nesta looked with a smile. The beautiful curve of her mouth, the narrowing of her pale blue eyes, the pinch in her cheeks and the two small dimples that formed right under then. He briefly wondered what other things she could do with her mouth that might also bring out those dimples… 

“No,” Nesta said. She sipped her wine.

Cassian stared at her. “Why?”

She shrugged, lounging back in her chair. “Why not? You always came off as rather gullible. I wanted to see for myself.” She took another sip of her wine.

He paused for a moment, then tipped his head back and laughed. And laughed and laughed. The sound was low and rich as it reverberated off the stone balcony.

“Care to tell me what’s so funny?” Nesta said smoothing the velvet over her thigh.

Cassian placed his elbows on the table and folded his hands. “You.”

“Me?”

He smiled. “Yes, you.” She raised an eyebrow. “All this,” he said, waving a hand to the table, the balcony. “All this—the bracelet, the necklace, your dress”—the memory of what it’d felt like to button her blue dress, to know the delicate curve of her spin, the urge he’d had to run his fingers,  _ his mouth _ , along the lily-white skin there, flashed through his mind—“you did all of it because you couldn’t just ask me to go on a date with you?”

She snorted rolled her eyes.

But didn’t deny it.

Cassian let out a low whistle. And he saw, rather than felt, that light return to his eyes. Saw because whatever it was, glimmered—no, reflected—in Nesta’s eyes, dancing like a prized fighter around an opponent ready to strike.

So he said, “Sweetheart, if you wanted to take me to bed, you didn’t have to buy me dinner.”

A blink was Nesta’s only tell.

And then her smile vanished. As she hauled up wall after wall after wall around her.

 

~

 

Something thick and hot and sticky crawled up Nesta’s back and settled over her neck and shoulders, her face.

Stupid. Dinner had been a stupid idea. There were a thousand other ways she could have gotten him out of his room, gotten him to come back, to snap out of it. But this dinner had been a foolish idea.

“You flatter yourself, Cassian.” Her words were chips of ice. “I wouldn’t deign to entertain even the thought of taking anyone as pathetic and as lamed as you to bed.” She stood, ignoring the look on his face. The look that told her he was not hurt by her words, but his own. By what he’d not meant to imply.

She backed away from the table.

Cassian stood. “Nesta, I didn’t mean—” Too close, he was too close and she needed to stop him, wound him. Enough to get him to stay away, but not to lock himself in that room again.

“ _ Didn’t mean what? _ ” she spat. “That you’re a cheap date? That you’d take anything to bed?” She ignored the look that clouded his eyes as she backed to the door and laughed in a shrill, near wild pitch. “You’re unbelievably gullible. I mean you thought—what? What did you think? Did you think that I did all this for  _ you? _ ” Her back hit the glass door, and she fumbled for the handle. “You’re not  _ that _ simple are you? Cauldron, I did this for me.”

He took a few steps forward. “That’s not true—”

“Yes, it is,” she yelled. And something in her fractured. “I’m a mean, heartless bitch. I’m everything Rhys tells you I am. In fact, I did this to get him to shut up—”

“Rhys has never said a word about y—”

“He doesn’t have to say a damn thing, Cassian,” Nesta screamed. “I see it every time he looks at me—what he thinks of me. Stupid, shitty High Lord Rhys. Spends a few years at the beck and call of a tyrant, and thinks he’s got me all figured out.”

She had no idea why she couldn’t stop talking, why she couldn’t just shut up and run away. Couldn’t stop hurling secrets at him when she knew they’d do nothing to stop him. She tried and tried and tried to stop, but the words just kept spilling out like bile—one horrible truth after the other. Her ugliness laid bare for the eyes of the one person she’d never wanted to see.

But she couldn’t stop. And so she continued.

“ _ Rhys _ ,” she screamed, “who never asked Mor if she needed to talk about what happened to her;  _ Rhys _ , who never once asked Amren what she really is because Cauldron-forbid he seem obtuse; _ Rhys _ , who’s never spent a day in his life starving, or freezing, or crying while he begged his father to do sometime— _ anything _ —to save his mother who lay dying in a bed for months and months. And all his father could be bothered to do was sit on his ass and watch.” An image of her mother—too pale, too thin, and wrapped in white bandages for bed sores—shuttered through Nesta’s mind. “Until one day when she’d wasted away so completely, so fully, that her heart gave out. And the bastard had the audacity to mourn her.”

She’d not known she’d started crying, not known for how long she’d been clutching the handle of the door.

She choked out, “...to act like he cared, only after it was too late.”

Cassian took a few steps forward. “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t care about me, Nesta.”

She opened her mouth to cut him off when a white piece of bandage slipped off one of his wings and pooled at his feet. Cassian followed her eyes as she stared and stared at that piece of gauze. Some of the white was yellowed. Her stomach twisted. 

She turned on her heels and pulled the door handle. She didn’t know if she’d make it back to her room before she got sick.

Covering her mouth with a hand, she moved as fast as she could through the halls. She didn’t bother to listen for Cassian. She was going to vomit and—

The back of her throat lurched backward only to launch itself forward. Nesta doubled over and heaved into a clay pot that appeared at her feet. A hole in the dirt from where the plant it’d held had been ripped out.

She flinched when Cassian’s hands pulled her long, golden brown hair away from her face.

She wished she could winnow. If only so that he would not get to see her like this—shaking and retching and blinking back tears. The stench of her sickness so much more potent to her Fae nose.

Cassian crouched beside her, shielding her from anyone who might pass by. Her knuckles were white when at last her stomach settled and she released her hold on the clay pot. 

She was running through a list of choice insults when Cassian said, “You did not sit by and do nothing when I needed you, Nesta. You did not pretend as if I were a lost cause, or as if I would one day get better without help.”

She turned her face away from him, toward the wall. 

“Thank you, Nesta,” he said. And something in her broke. Broke so fully that she was sure he’d heard it, sure the world had heard it. She fought the tears that swelled—and lost. “Thank you for saving me. For caring enough to help me when I could not help myself.” Cassian released her hair and flattened his hand on her back. It was large and warm, and she did not shy away. Just let him keep it there as she tried her best to hide her sobbing, her shaking.

He rubbed idle circles over her shoulder blade with a thumb.

“Look at me,” he said. 

She could not. 

“Look at me, Nesta.” 

And still she could not.

A calloused hand slid under her chin to rest along the far side of her face. She knew he could feel the tears there. The hair that had become plastered to her skin. 

Slowly, Cassian turned Nesta to face him.

She didn’t know where to look—left, right, down. But when she glanced at his eyes—what she saw there… she could not look away.

A large, rough thumb rolled over her cheek and wiped her tears. 

“You are not your father,” he said in a voice that was as deep as it was warm and gentle. “You are loving and kind and brave. And I see you, Nesta. Beneath all of it—the fire, the venom, the rage. I see you. And you would tear the world apart to help someone you loved.”

Cassian slid his hand from her back and tucked the hair behind her ear, the one that was closest to him. He tucked back that golden brown curtain so she could not hide from him, not anymore. He brushed his knuckles along her cheek, wiping the tears.

Her eyelids fluttered at the touch, but she choked out, “So you think you’re someone I love?”

A smiled lit Cassian’s face like the morning sun cresting the horizon, and Nesta thought she might’ve gone blind from not seeing it. From missing it all these weeks and months. 

He said, “You’ve been in love with me since the moment you first ignored me at your dinner table.” Nesta snorted, careful not to get tears and snot and spit all over him—though she doubted he’d care. “Which is good,” he added, “because I fell in love with you the moment I sat down at that table.”

They stared at one another for a too long moment. Then Nesta brought her hands up, wrapped them around Cassian’s armored wrists, and gently pulled them away from her face. Cassian tapped each siphon, and the armor retracted, then vanished entirely. By the time Nesta had pushed his hands down to her lap, she held his bare wrists. His skin was warm.

Her heart was a hummingbird in her chest as she stared down at his hands.

He held them awkwardly, unsure if it would be okay to relax them, or lay then down against her. She stared at them a moment. And Cassian flipped his wrists so that his palms were facing up. An offering, and a silent question.

Nesta had never realized how much bigger his hands were then hers. How much darker they were, too.

She swallowed thickly and let his wrists go.

But Cassian grabbed her hands with his. Nesta’s eyes shot up—and she found his hazel ones devouring her. She had no idea how long he might have been staring at her, watching her.

He rubbed his thumbs along the backs of her hands. She wasn’t sure she was breathing. 

But Cassian was. The rise and fall of his chest was rapid. His broad shoulders, his muscles, expanded and contracted with each inhale and exhale.

“You’re not wearing a shirt,” Nesta said.

Cassian smiled. “Are you mad?”

“I think you killed the ficus.”

Cassian looked over to the plant he’d ripped from the clay pot. “Is that what those tiny trees are called?” He was still rubbing the backs of her hands.

She huffed a laugh. “You should probably pick it up before Elain sees… or your High Lord.”

Cassian looked back at her. He squeezed her hands. “Rhys does not blame you, Nesta.”

“I don’t care what Rhys thinks.”

“Rhys does not know what it’s like to be starving. He does not know what it’s like to be so young and so angry. He only sees Feyre, what she did and—” Cassian shook his head. “He cannot understand that. Your father was the parent, Nesta. It was his responsibility to protect to his children— _ all _ of his children. Not yours.”

She wanted to tell him that it didn’t feel that way, that she should have done something, but all she could do was nod.

Cassian said, “And if I ever meet your father, I will remind him of that, of his failings. I’ll remind him that he sat on his ass and let his children care for him. And that you are nothing like him.”

Nesta blinked. 

Cassian stood, pulling her to her feet. “Come on,” he said, letting go of only one of her hands. He turned down the hallway toward their rooms. “You smell like vomit, and I can’t eat dinner with you if you stink.”

Nesta scowled but kept pace. “We already ate dinner.”

“Yes, and then you heaved yours into the ficus pot. What kind of male would I be if I let you end our first date on an empty stomach?”

“This isn’t a date.”

He turned to her and smiled. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

Nesta stared at him from the corner of her eye as they walked down the hall. She took a deep breath and tightened her hand around his. “If I have to wash my mouth, then we’re binding your wings back up. And you’re putting on a damn shirt.”

“Is the view making you uncomfortable?”

“Of course not,” she lied. “Your ridiculous temper tantrum shredded the bindings and now I can see all the pussy parts and stitches. It’s disgusting. And I’d rather not vomit again.”

Cassian tipped his head back and laughed—all the way back to their rooms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm PropShopHannah on Tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm PropShopHannah on Tumblr.


End file.
